Man eats crack cocaine to avoid arrest

Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003

A man who ate suspected crack cocaine was transported to an Athens area hospital Friday after the apparently swallowed the drug to hide it from police.

A veteran police officer patrolling at the intersection of Paris Street and Henderson Extension was writing a citation to a 26-year-old pedestrian Friday evening when he noticed the man was being ''unusually quiet,'' according to police reports.

When officers questioned his silence, the man wouldn't speak, but began to chew. He started coughing and spitting, and tried several times to swallow, but the item in his mouth was too big, according to police.

''I again cautioned (the man) that what he was doing could hurt or kill him,'' the officer wrote in his report.

Since the man wouldn't stop swallowing the suspected drug, officers called an ambulance to the scene to take him to the hospital.

Police collected pieces of debris that flew from the man's mouth when he was coughing. Tests showed they were cocaine.